fbpx
Search Donate

Show results for
  • News
  • Videos
  • Action Alerts
  • Events
  • Resources
  • MEND

Political activists claim Cambridge police used 'covert tactics' to recruit spies

Political activists claim Cambridge police used 'covert tactics' to recruit spies

Categories: Latest News

Wednesday March 19 2014

The Guardian draws attention to allegations regarding Cambridgeshire police’s use of covert tactics to recruit four political campaigners to spy on political groups such as anti-fascists.

The activists, who were unwilling to be named, revealed how a covert unit from the police force tried to persuade them to become informants and spy on political colleagues in return for cash. The practice has been going on since 2010 according to the claims published.

Among the four activists who have come forward is a 23 year old anti-racism protester. She claims that she felt intimidated by an officer who tried to recruit her as an informer inside Unite Against Fascism (UAF) in 2012. She also asserts the officer threatened to prosecute her if she told anyone about the recruitment attempt. Eventually, she withdrew from the UAF.

As a single mother, she consequently felt vulnerable, intimidated and concerned that a prosecution would endanger her son, her university place and her career prospects. She tells then paper, “If I was charged, I could lose everything.”

The allegations come two weeks on from the announcement by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, of a public inquiry into the work of undercover officers following an independent inquiry’s findings that Scotland Yard officers had spied on murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence’s family.

Although the police force accepts that it tried to recruit the four campaign activists, it refused to give details about the unit. A spokesman said “Officers use covert tactics to gather intelligence, in accordance with the law, to assist in the prevention and detection of criminal activity.

“In the application of these tactics we wouldn’t engage in behaviour which has been described by the individuals.”

It is becoming apparent the extent to which the use of such covert practices has become prevalent in recent years. The allegation in the Guardian today echoes techniques used to monitor young Muslim students considered at risk of radicalisation. In a Guardian article last year, Hugh Muir observed “the government’s Prevent programme, and its deradicalisation arm Channel, has drawn on the university establishments themselves…as surveillance assets.”

Arun Kundnani’s new book ‘The Muslims are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror’ explores how law enforcement and intelligence agencies identify which Muslims are ‘dangerous’ and what strategies should be used to deal with them, including widespread surveillance and ethnic profiling.

Kundnani’s previous report “Spooked! How not to prevent violent extremism” scrutinised evidence that the former Prevent programme was being used to gather intelligence on Muslim communities by embedding counter-terrorism officers in local services and ‘mapping’ Muslim communities through service provision.

According to the Guardian, while there are no published figures on the number of people who have been converted into informants by the police, the total is likely to run into hundreds.

Newsletter

Find out more about MEND, sign up to our email newsletter

Get all the latest news from MEND straight to your inbox. Sign up to our email newsletter for regular updates and events information

reCAPTCHA